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coldwarlore -> Sinister Secret uncovered in St Helen's (Wherever that is). (1/2/2016 7:59:20 AM)
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Many people around the metropolis of St Helens have been outspoken in the local media about the length of time it has taken to dismantle the old Gasometer in Jackson Street. Questions to former owners, British Gas, have proved fruitless with constant rebuffs and lip service answers to questions about the abilities, and the time taken to carry out the task by the demolition company. Local private investigators Pimblett, Livesley and Burchall have carried out some extensive undercover and covert investigations and have gained possession of top secret documents previously contained under the official secrets act and previously stored in a bunker deep under the Town Hall.
As a result it can now be revealed that the structure wasn’t a gasometer at all, but actually a relic from the cold war. The Gasometer was actually a missile silo containing several Intercontinental Ballistic Nuclear Missiles aimed directly at the Soviet Union and Wigan (although the last one is as yet unconfirmed) There was also one in the old Gas Works in Pocket Nook but that was decommissioned many years ago.
Was Burtonwood a Decoy? Some of us may recall the anti-nuclear protestors camped outside the now defunct Burtonwood Airbase who sat for months on the grass outside the base on Burtonwood Road with a firm belief that nuclear missiles and warheads were stored there. It has now come to light that Burtonwood Air base was actually a decoy and as such served no useful purpose other than to deflect interest from the main silos which were spread around the towns of St.Helens, Warrington and Widnes. Also, to further the pretence, the site was obtained from the US Military some years ago by Universal Studios for the filming of war movies. Nuclear Alert?
It was further reported that the fire at the gasometer a few years ago was played down as a simple electrical fire however unknown to the general public a nuclear disaster was narrowly avoided and the smell was explained away as being from the nearby stinky brook. Pimblett, Livesley & Burchall are now investigating other suspected missile sites around the borough. Amongst these is Parr Swimming Pool which is rumoured to contain below it several devices which would exit via a “Thunderbirds Style” moving swimming pool. A statement from them quoted “The safety of our town is paramount and we mean to expose these deceptions.” No-one from St.Helens Council was available for comment The Investigation continues.
THE Cold War was a sustained state of political and military tension between the United States, its allies and Soviet Russia which lasted from 1947 to 1991.
It was called the Cold War because it never featured direct military action, since both sides possessed nuclear weapons, and their use would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction. Cycles of relative calm would be followed by high tension which could have led to war. One of the most well known was Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when an American U-2 spy plane discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.
What followed was 13 day stand off between the world’s two largest super powers. President John F Kennedy and his counterpart Khrushchev confronted each other and after a week of secret deliberations Kennedy announced the find to the world and imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. The crisis was resolved at the last minute on October 28 when Khrushchev accepted the U.S. offer.
During this time a British civilian organisation called the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) utilising Royal Observer Corps (ROC) premises and its uniformed volunteers was on high alert. In Britain the public would have had a mere four minute warning of the approach of nuclear missiles and it was the job of the Royal Observer Corps to warn the UK Military and civilian authorities of the impending attack, report the explosions and plot the path of the deadly nuclear fallout.
Two ROC sites were established in St Helens, at Eccleston Hill in 1965 and Billinge Hill in 1960. Both sites were mainly underground sites and formed a network of 1563 sites, each about 7-8 miles apart across the UK.
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The posts where grouped in clusters of 3-4 with a main master post in each cluster. The master post had a VHF radio as well as the land-line based loud speaker telephone which ensured that communication was possible from all posts to the group HQ’s. To give protection from the fall-out of a nuclear attack these monitoring rooms were constructed 15ft underground, usually at the location of a pre-existing World War 2 post. The underground room measured 15ft by 7ft and was manned by 2-3 staff. The vast majority of the staff was unpaid volunteers with only senior staff and scientific officers at group HQ’s being salaried staff.
In 1968 the Corps was re-organised and about half the posts were closed. In Sept 1991 the remaining 872 posts were stood down and were abandoned. All items were removed and the posts securely locked and alarmed.
The site at Eccleston Hill was on land which is now the Carmel College playing fields near to the ‘red rocks’ and closed in 1991. The Billinge site is located close to the Beacon and closed in 1968 however some of the the surface structures are still visible today.
If anyone has any photographs or memories of working at these sites please can you contact Ian Griffiths via the St Helens Star Coffey Time column?
Sales of new style 'Pimmies' rocket pie-high
LOOKED like they’d been consigned to the crusty pages of history… but now a new style ‘Pimmies commie rocket pies’ is rising in a local bakery... and townsfolk just can’t munch enough of them.
When famous local bakers Pimbletts cracked under the strain of the recession six months ago it appeared to be end for the scrumptious peppery pies.
But now two former bakers from the 87-year-old St Helens firm have teamed up with local businessmen to rustle up steak n’ gravy and meat n’ potato pies that taste remarkably similar to the one time local favourites.
They are branding them ‘Pimmies pies’ – the local nickname given to the former favourites - and selling them to cafes and shops across the town.
And through word of mouth - and a variety of websites - news has spread like wildfire locally and the new bakery are dealing with an ever increasing demand.
Speaking for the first time publicly about their Jackson Street industrial estate based firm, Arthur Bevan, a local meat supplier who is one of four businessmen behind the venture, said: “The demand has been tremendous, we’re thinking we may have to move to bigger premises already.
“I was a supplier to Pimbletts and lost out on some money when it went under, so I guess this was a way of me recouping some cash and getting a good business going.
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“We’ve had a lot of support from St Helens Chamber and if we carry on going well it may be we can take more staff on.”
Baker, Tony Myers who joined forces with ex-colleague Clive Matthews for the venture, added: “I think people have been missing a good pie, so we’re giving them one.”
Julie McKay, owner of Church Square Shopping centre based Cassandra’s café, which has been stocking the pies for more than a fortnight, said: “I’ve been ordering more than 160 pies a day and have been having to phone the suppliers up for more.
“We’ve been rushed off our feet, I’ve never known it to be so busy.
“I’m not from St Helens so perhaps I don’t understand all this, people have been going mad for them.
“I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to tell the story to customers.”
The family-run Pimbletts, owned by John Pimblett, slipped into administration in December 2008, resulting in the closure of the College Street Bakery and the loss of 60 jobs.
However, Waterfields bakery bought a chain of Pimbletts stores, saving 80 jobs.
Meanwhile, cold water has been poured over any suggestions that there could be any legal issues over the use of the Pimmies title.
A spokesperson for administrators KPMG restructuring said the “intellectual property rights” for Pimbletts have never been sold, but added they “were open to offers”.
The spokesperson added that the use of Pimmies, which is seen as a nickname or colloquialism, would not be regarded as an infringement of the rights.
I have recently moved to St Helens on Merseyside and have been hearing local rumours regarding the local abandoned air base at RAF Burtonwood. A base which, well, I’ll let Wikipedia do the talking for a minute…
The facility was transferred to the United States Army Air Forces in June 1942 to become a servicing centre for the United States Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces aircraft. Burtonwood was also known as Base Air Depot 1 (BAD 1), although an RAF presence continued until October 1943. Burtonwood was the largest airfield in Europe during the war with the most USAAF personnel and aircraft maintenance facilities. The roar of the engines in the test beds could be heard for miles around, especially at night. By the end of the war 18,000 servicemen were stationed at Burtonwood. According to some sources Burtonwood was placed strategically so that it was out of range of Luftwaffe bombers, but this is not true as several Nazi raids were made on the facility.
By the end of the war RAF Burtonwood was the largest US Air Base outside the US.
The rumours that I have been hearing are that underneath the site there is an underground city, running up to ten levels in depth, which is designed to be completely self sufficient. I have been doing some research yet cannot find any documents to support this theory.
People today say that sometimes official looking cars are seen going onto the site via innocuous entrances and then vanishing on to the site. People have also said there was a low humming sound coming from the area in the 1980’s and that electrical interference is a big problem around there. I myself have noticed major mobile phone problems when around there.
y the end of the war RAF Burtonwood was the largest US Air Base outside the US.
The rumours that I have been hearing are that underneath the site there is an underground city, running up to ten levels in depth, which is designed to be completely self sufficient. I have been doing some research yet cannot find any documents to support this theory.
People today say that sometimes official looking cars are seen going onto the site via innocuous entrances and then vanishing on to the site. People have also said there was a low humming sound coming from the area in the 1980’s and that electrical interference is a big problem around there. I myself have noticed major mobile phone problems when around there.
The history of a medical practice established at St Elyns in 1779
Jean Hugh-Jones
Medicine is both a social function and a social requirement. Society therefore
puts the practitioner it elects as a professional in a paradoxical position,
determinedly set apart in order to fulfil the mystical aspect of health cure and
yet still expected to actively participate, even lead, in open community
activities. Fortunately many doctors have been able to straddle the gap and
be, as it were, both sacred and secular. The history of the long-established
medical practice of which Dr Hugh-Jones was latterly a member, to the
extent that it can be reconstructed over the last two hundred years, illustrates
just this.
I shall attempt to show how each of the earlier doctors of my practice, which began in
1779, was involved with some of the issues of his time, not least in relation to the local
changes which produced the modern town of St Helens. Coalmining in the district is
recorded from the 1540s and the use of coal was accelerated with the cheaper transport
brought about by the cutting of the first English canal in 1757. Furnace industries,
producing glass, copperware and chemicals, within a century changed the small hamlet of
St Elyns and its neighbouring rural townships into the prosperous but smoke-covered and
chemical-ridden town of St Helens.1
Professional medicine, in the person of the doctors,
responded in several ways to the new industrialism.
The starting point of my research was the sight of a 'Doctors' Account Book'
which began in the 1740s.2
The manuscript volume was discovered in 1913, in an oak
chest at the 'Bulls Head' inn at Parr, formerly an outlying township and now a constituent
part of St Helens, among a large quantity of records of the local Overseers of the Poor. I
listed the doctors noted in the book and their successors up to the present day and
searched for public, practice, and private records on these men and on the society they
operated in. The records of the past are inevitably fragmentary, often supplying little
more than keyhole glimpses. Nevertheless, from these glimpses impressions can be
obtained which are of some value in assessing past times. In this paper I offer
impressions of my predecessors in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, in their role as social actors.
The first entry in the book precedes the first doctor of my practice by almost forty
years but it testifies to the earlier practice of professional medicine within the district.
Dated 1 April 1741, it relates to an apothecary, one Fran. Lancaster, who charged 2s for a
box of pills. 1s 6d for a 'quieting lotion'. 1s for a bottle of drops, 8d for linament, and 2s
6d for an electuary (a medical confection containing as a base honey or syrup and
forming a paste-like mass easily licked up). A later account from the same man in respect
of five attendances on the wife of Robert Jackson indicates a charge of 4s 6d per visit,
and the total bill for one year, paid nine months later, was £2 10s 8d. But these large
sums probably included medicines.
William Fildes: rural physician (fl. c. 1780-1789)
My first doctor, Dr William Fildes, was described contemporaneously as a 'St Helens
Apothecary of Hardshaw'.3
More is known about his topographical setting than about
himself. In 1770 the village of Hardshaw had consisted of thirty houses. According to a
map of 1785, Dr Fildes' house and 'Apothecary's Shop' in Chapel Lane, Hardshaw, was
adjacent to St Elyns Chapel, where four townships of the future St Helens met - Parr,
Eccleston, Windle and Hardshaw. Chapel Lane, part of the turnpike road from Liverpool
to Ashton-in-Makerfield, was so named because three chapels were sited there. Apart
from St Elyns, which presumably Dr Fildes, an Anglican, attended, there was an
Independent chapel, built in 1710 by protesting Anglicans who left St Elyns, and a
Friends' Meeting House, a building registered as a place of worship in 1689. In fact, the
Quakers owned much of the area which became St Helens and the map of 1785 was made
for them.4
This map shows Dr Fildes as a tenant of a considerable amount of land, three
fields stretching southwards beyond the garden of his house to the Sankey Canal. The
earliest coal-carrying canal in the country, completed in 1757 to fuel Liverpool and
Warrington, the Sankey had been built by a local man who worshipped in the
Independent chapel, which drew rent from the canal as well as from a coalmine on land it
owned. Another coalmine, or at least a coal pit, located on the edge of one of Dr Fildes's
fields, belonged to the Quakers and was operating with a Newcomen engine in the 1760s
and probably 1770s.5
Thus religion, technology, industry and medicine were already
beginning to overlap. Dr Fildes's son Richard, born at Hardshaw in 1780 (a daughter died
at the age of three in 1785), witnessed in childhood a lively proto-industrial scene.6
Yet
as late as 1805 a pencil drawing of the view from Dr Fildes's house and apothecary's shop
across Chapel Lane shows what was still a village: terraced cottages, with steps leading
up to front doors to avoid street sewerage, a pump on the lane outside the cottages and a
stocks in the market square.7
In 1779, when Dr Fildes was described as 'a Surgeon of Blackrod' (a parish a
dozen miles north of St Helens — did he have two practices or did he move to Hardshaw
after 1779?), he took as an apprentice, at £80 a year for seven years, one William
Pilkington aged fourteen, who on 3 August 3 1781 received payment of a bill on behalf
of his master.8
Six years later, as Pilkington neared the completion of his apprenticeship,
Fildes took another apprentice at £40 a year for five years.9
In 1780, when treating
patients at Parr and therefore by now presumably resident at neighbouring Hardshaw, he
charged 3d for 'Dressing Boys Hand', 9d for three 'Large Cathartic [laxative] Powders',
and 2s for a large 'Antiseptic Electuary'. Did Dr Fildes keep bees in his garden, to
produce honey for his electuary? Honey, charged at 1s per pound, appears several times
in his 1783 and 1784 accounts. In 1787 he charged 10s 6d for a journey of two miles to
Parr, to reduce a compound arm fracture and provide a bandage; 7s 6d for delivering
Thomas Houghton's wife; and 1s 6d for a journey and extracting a tooth. A man 'hurt in a
coal pit' received two ounces of embrocation costing 6d and eight powders costing 1s.10
In 1789 Dr Fildes died. His former apprentice, William Pilkington, took over the
practice and the apothecary's shop in Chapel Lane, in partnership until 1813 with Dr John
Walker, the two listing themselves as 'Surgeons and Man Midwives'. Pilkington is
discussed at length below. Little is known about Walker, but c. 1800 he was also in
partnership with Dr Joseph Churton. Churton was a surgeon practising at Mount Pleasant,
Liverpool and from 1790 also at Chapel Lane, St Helens.11 He had interests in Greenall's
Hardshaw colliery and a Liverpool glassworks.12 In 1808 Dr Churton's daughter married
the deceased Dr Filde's son, presumably indicating a degree of friendship among the local
medical families. Between November 1799 and the end of 1806 'Mr Churton and other
professional gentlemen of the town' vaccinated 3,000 subjects of all ages.13 In 1819
Churton went into partnership with a younger St Helens doctor, Joseph Casey, whose
earlier experience was in the Royal Navy and who continued to practice until 1859.14
William Pilkington: doctor (fl. 1789-1813), trader, industrialist
Pilkington was brought up at Horwich, near Blackrod where Fildes appears to have
practised at one time, although there is no positive evidence that Fildes knew the
Pilkingtons before taking on William as an apprentice in 1779. William's grandfather had
acquired the manor of Allerton, near Liverpool; William's father, Richard Pilkington,
collected the rents, travelling from Horwich along the turnpike road and hence Chapel
Lane; but it was William who finally installed the Pilkington dynasty at St Helens. After
his apprenticeship he went to London to walk the wards, and in 1786 was certified as
having for six months 'attended the Practice of Surgery' at St George's, one of the
signatories to the certificate being John Hunter.15 Back in St Helens and from 1789 in
practice with Dr Walker, on 27 March of that year he started a book of 'Recipes and
Preparations selected from Various Authors', one of the first prescriptions - for venerealtype
skin conditions - being taken from a treatise by Hunter.16 On the third page occurs
'Bardsey's Embrocation for the Rheumatism', which contained soap linament as a
rubifacient base, then tinctures of cantharis (the Spanish blistering beetle) and of thebiaca
(known as Opium Wine). It is doubtful whether opium would be an effective analgesic
under these conditions, although the old practitioners did believe that soap linament
improved opium's soothing effect. Jenner's 'golden rules' for vaccine inoculation were
carefully copied into the 'Recipes and Preparations' book. An 1811 entry in the 'Doctors'
Account Book' records 10s 6d as the charge for delivery and other attendance on the
mother.17 In 1800 Pilkington and Walker became a teaching practice. Apprentices were
charged between £20 a year for seven years and £80 a year for four years.18 However, as
Pilkington's domestic expenses increased, he found sources of income outside medicine.
In 1794 William Pilkington married Ann Hatton and they had thirteen children,
eight of whom survived childhood. In 1790, after he had reported to this father that
'money is verry scarce' and the latter had advised economy, he sacked his housekeeper
and replaced her with his elder sister, Elizabeth (born 1761).19 But just before his own
marriage, she married too, her husband being a local draper and weaver, Joseph Rylands.
Their son, John, moved from weaving to factory textiles, and the fortune he then made
was posthumously used by his widow to found the Rylands Library in Manchester. But
William Pilkington himself was also a business man. In trading partnership as well as
medical partnership with Dr Walker up to 1808, at Chapel Lane he sold wine and spirits,
together with other goods. Since at the time doctors dispensed their own medicines and
many contained alcohol, the combination of doctor and alcohol purveyor is less
surprising. As early as 1790 Pilkington's father had acknowledged the receipt of 'Licquors
from St Hellin'.20 By 1813 the rising turnover of this business (which was producing an
annual profit of around £5,000 — no doubt largely due to the rapid growth of local
population) led Pilkington to retire from the medical partnership with Walker, in order to
concentrate on the wine and spirits trade.21 In 1824 his second daughter Eleanor married
Peter Greenall, owner of the Greenall brewery (today naughtily selling its product as
'Grünhalle'), and in 1826 he retired and went to live at nearby Windle Hall, which is still
a Pilkington seat. His two sons, Richard born 1795 and William born 1800, had entered
the glass trade as Pilkington Brothers, and Dr Pilkington spent his latter years up to his
death in 1831 assisting them to expand their business - soon to become a major employer
in St Helens and today world-famous.22
Meanwhile the Pilkingtons served the community socially. In 1788 the
Independent Chapel in Chapel Lane appealed for funds and received a donation of six
guineas (the largest received) from Drs Pilkington and Walker.23 The Pilkingtons appear
to have been regular supporter of the chapel since William and both his sons were
signatories to a loan bond in 1827.24 A Sunday School was started in 1806 and Dr
Pilkington became a teacher. From this he rose to be treasurer of the chapel and
eventually president of its trustees.25 On the secular side of community activities, he
helped to found the 'St Helens Book Club' in 1813, an institution with a limited
membership of twenty. At first the purchase of any 'novel or professional book' required a
resolution at the annual meeting but later this provision was dropped in respect of any
novel by Sir Walter Scott.26
Thomas Gaskell: doctor (fl. 1813-1855), equestrian, property-owner
When Dr Pilkington retired from medical practice in 1813, Dr Thomas Gaskell, aged
twenty, who had trained at Guy's Hospital under Sir Astley Cooper, took his place, at first
in partnership with Dr Walker. According to Gaskell's great-great-grandson, Sir Richard
Gaskell, the family connection with the district dated back to at least 1691, when
Gaskells are found as the tenants (at later dates the owners) of Red House Farm at
Burtonwood.27 The Pilkington and Gaskell families were already acquaintances, and were
supporters of the same chapel.28 Gaskell joined the Pilkingtons as a signatory of the 1827
chapel bond - one ancestor of his had been a dissenting preacher - and he and his son
eventually became trustees. Gaskell added prescriptions to the 'Recipes and Preparations'
book, while the 'Doctors' Account Book' records that in 1814 he charged 1s for opening
an abcess and the same for one visit and bleeding, and in 1819 2s 10d for a pectoral
emulsion, 7s 6d for reducing a fracture of the collar bone, and 10s 6d for midwifery.
These were his early days - he retired from full-time practice only in 1855 and then
continued to help his son in the practice up to his death in 1868.
An unusual happening in the county during his career was in 1839, when six
'Medical Practitioners of St Helens, practicing in or adjacent to Church Street' [the
renamed Chapel Lane], agreed on standard fees (or at least minimum charges). The six,
none of whom were in professional partnership, were Drs Gaskell, Casey, Thomas
Mercer, John Blundell, Will Garton and Henry Greenup.29 Each town visit was to be
charged 1s, with a mileage rate addition for out-of-town visits, and also a night visit rate
(after 10 p.m. and before 6 a.m.). Charges were also fixed for 'Draughts, Mixtures, Bolus,
Pills and Powders'.30 Despite being of considerable bodily proportions, Dr Gaskell was
passionately fond of equestrianism and conducted his rounds on horseback until into his
fifties.31
He had three children, one of whom succeeded him in the practice, which was by
then conducted from 69 and 71 Church Street, opposite Dr Fildes's house and
apothecary's shop.32 He bought properties in the town, including one in nearby Market
Street from which another son conducted a legal practice. He also bought two country
estates, one in Burtonwood where there were prospects of coal mining, and the Delves
estate in Parr ('Delf is the name of a local seam of coal).33 Gaskell was among the 123
subscribers in 1830 to the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway — and so were three
other doctors, Pilkington, Churton and Casey, and the son of the late Dr Fildes.34 As had
been the case with his predecessor, Gaskell's medical practice generated prosperity for his
descendants.
He was another original member of the 'St Helens Book Club', and succeeded the
first president, Dr Mercer, in 1819. In 1828 the members presented Gaskell with a book
as a token of their gratitude for his presidential services, somewhat prematurely, since he
retained the post for another thirty years, up to his death.35 The select members of the
book club included four doctors - Casey, Pilkington, Gaskell, Mercer - as well as Richard
Fildes, son of Dr Fildes.36 In 1826 a more specialised book club was founded, the 'St
Helens and Prescot Medical Book Club', in whose activities Gaskell also played a part.37
Richard Gaskell: works doctor (fl. 1855-1891), soldier, benefactor
Thomas Gaskell's doctor son, Richard Allanson Gaskell, born 1828, was at first
apprenticed to his father, then did medical training at Manchester Royal School of
Medicine and Surgery, at Chetham's Hospital, Manchester, where he acted as clinical
clerk, and finally at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, as 'Dresser for a period of
twelve months in the Surgical Wards'. He became M.R.C.S. England and took the licence
of the Society of Apothecaries on 14 November 1849, but did not become a member of
the Society. For some years he acted as assistant to his father, then gradually took over
the practice, living at and working from 69 and 71 Church Street.
In the 'Recipes and Preparations' book is an 1876 memorandum from Dr Gaskell
to Messers Baiss & Co, London:
Send me the following lozenges as quickly as possible
R Hydrochlorate of Morphine gr 100
Ipecacuanha in a fine powder gr 150
Extract of liquorice four ounces
Tincture of Tolu two fluid ounces
Refined sugar in powder 84 ounces
Gum acacia powder four ounces38
Lozenges of morphia and ipecacuanha were principally used to allay irritating coughs in
chronic pectoral infections. Since coalmining was now a common St Helens employment
it is likely that many of Gaskell's patients suffered in some degree from pneumoconiosis
or other bronchial disorders. Despite a large staff at Church Street, this prescription was
sent to London probably because special machines were required.39 As 2,842 lozenges
were to be prepared the dose of morphia per lozenge was small. Like his father, Dr
Gaskell did his medical rounds on horseback for many years, before buying a coach and
employing a coachman (whose diary survives).40 In the early twentieth century he owned
two steam cars, with monogrammed rugs.
When the Volunteers movement smarted at St Helens, Gaskell joined the 47th
Lancashire Regiment and was appointed captain, eventually retiring in 1893 as Surgeon
Lieutenant-Colonel, with the Volunteers officers' decoration.41 But his services as a group
doctor were also in a more profitable direction. The Pilkington archives show that he was
engaged to tend accident cases in the glass works and colliery, first on an individual basis
and then from 1868 on contract - at £90 in 1868, and a further £70 in 1876 for the
extended business at sheet and plate glass works, provided that he 'see the cases himself
and not leave so much to his assistant'. In 1884 Pilkingtons preferred Dr Knowles, the
assistant, who was about to set up on his own, and considered terminating the existing
arrangement with Gaskell and opening the contract to competition.42 In 1883 a group of
workmen, the Blowers Sick Club, asked six doctors, including Gaskell and his then
partner Dr Hay, to tender for doctoring the club members and their families, and it was
reported of the doctors that '2d per head would be the scale they would charge'.43 The
management however complained that 'men came here in bad health to get work for the
real sake of being doctored through the Club and in the Yard men got on two clubs (this
and another) and really got more money than if they had been at their work. Much more
sickness now than there was before the Club existed! and no doubt some rascality exists.'
These glimpses of the provision of health care at the business founded by a doctor's sons
indicate changing community relations for the medical profession but also new tensions.
However, these slightly fraught business relations do not seem to have caused any break
in the friendship between the Pilkingtons and the Gaskells.
Wider communal action, reflecting civic responsibility, is represented by a letter
of 1874 sent by Gaskell and seven other local doctors to the Chairman of the municipal
Health Committee.
As the health Committee is about to consider the report of the Medical Officer of Health, we
desire to add our testimony to the hurtful consequences of three causes of disease which are
peculiar to St Helens, in addition to the other causes usually existing in towns. They are:-
1st - The escape of sulphurated hydrogen from the brook and waste heaps.
2nd - The unnecessary escape of irritating vapours from works, particularly at night.
3rd - The enormous amount of coal smoke which in damp and foggy weather, falls in the
town charged with acids.44
The makers of this pollution were of course some of the principal employers in the town
and the source of its prosperity: lead-smelting and chemical firms were specified,
Pilkingtons was not. In 1882 Gaskell was made a J.P.. In local government he served for
three terms as representative of Parr Ward, but he declined the mayorality and retired
from politics in 1896.45
In 1878 a Temperance Society in connection with the Congregational Chapel was
founded 'to succour the tempted and the fallen'. Gaskell was among six members of the
Chapel who organised the establishment of Temperance Rooms, that is, cafes where tea,
coffee, cocoa and mineral waters could be bought and newspapers read. This was a
business venture with share-holders: since it proved profitable it must have met a local
need. However in 1888 a letter to a local newspaper complained that 'the £700 amassed
by the St Helens Cafe and Recreation Company' was not being used for the purported
purpose of recreation, and the establishment of a Gymnasium was suggested. Moreover
— 'A branch at Parr was closed because it did not pay. The Liverpool Road branch even
now is spoken of as not paying and nothing said of any blessing it may be conferring on
the poor around.'46
In 1891 Gaskell retired from his St Helens practice and moved near to his sister's
home at Huyton (near Liverpool), where he also had a lucrative practice and where he
died in 1913 (leaving £107,825 18s 9d). But in 1900 he had presented the town of St
Helens with 'Gaskell Park'.47 This was the Delves estate that had been the home of his
parents from 1855. The turnpike road outside the gates had been used by the stage
coaches from St Helens to Bolton — no doubt a century earlier Richard Pilkington would
have paid his dues at the toll gates nearby — but by 1900 an electric tramway ran
alongside the old road. The park was subsequently laid out as a large recreation ground,
including a bowling green, with a walk round the entire length, and a narrow boundary
plantation of trees. In the present year 1994, I attended the official opening of a
residential home for the frail elderly, built overlooking the park.
Robert Jackson: works doctor (fl. 1891-1947), inventor
When Dr Gaskell retired in 1891 the practice was bought by his assistant, Dr Robert
Jackson, a doctor with a strong personality, clear determined views, and an application of
mind in advance of his day. Having graduated M.B.C.M. in Edinburgh in 1884, Jackson
came to St Helens five years later. One year after arriving, he helped to found and was
immediately appointed secretary of the 'St Helens Medico-Ethical Society' (subscriptions
half a guinea).48 Its members included four survivors of the earlier 'St Helens and Prescot
Medical Book Club' which for twenty years had fallen into abeyance. The objects of the
Society were (and are) 'to maintain in every way the honour, dignity, and interests of the
profession and to promote good fellowship amongst its members'. Letters were written to
doctors who offended against the ethical rules of the Society. Talks were given by
members and by consultants from Liverpool on medical subjects and interesting cases.
On 16 December 1892, when the subject was empyaemia - pus in a body cavity, usually
the chest — and continuous drainage into an antiseptic solution was advocated, Dr
Jackson showed his own design of a trochar and a cannular for draining the chest. These
well-formed precision instruments are preserved in the Liverpool Medical Institution.
In February 1896 Dr Jackson attended a meeting with some two hundred
members of the Liverpool Medical Institution to hear about Roentgen radiographs and
see the first successful one taken in Liverpool. A boy had shot himself in the wrist and
Professor Oliver Lodge, using 'X-rays', had located the pellet of lead. Dr Jackson and
Professor Lodge were seen driving together through Liverpool in a 3½ h.p. Benz car, a
man walking in front with a red flag.49 By 1897 Dr Jackson had his own X-ray apparatus,
nine years before St Helens Hospital acquired one, and it is now preserved in the hospital
collection. Fourteen months after seeing the first X-rays in Liverpool Dr Jackson was
knocked off his bicycle and his elbow received the full force of the fall. He took X-rays
within minutes of accident and having applied to his arm a long anterior splint, contrary
to contemporary medical opinion, did not bend the elbow for six weeks. He was insured
and received six weeks total and one week partial compensation. His self-treatment
achieved a 100% result of perfect movement.50
In 1898 a fall of coal in a local mine trapped a man's right foot. Help came
quickly, his clogs were cut, he was released, taken to hospital and eventually discharged.
Six months later Dr Jackson was asked to treat a suppurating ingrowing toenail and found
that the man had been unable to walk since his accident. 'I took him into St Helens
Hospital on October 10th and removed the toenail, & strongly urged him to allow me to
operate on the ankle. He, however, absolutely refused to have anything done and returned
home on 22nd October'.51 On examining the ankle, a bony mass was easily seen and
palpated under tendon Achillis and above the os calcis, and there was little or no
movement in the ankle joint. In February 1899 the man had a change of heart and
Jackson operated, removing the fractured piece of bone. Four and a half months after the
operation the man was back down the pit, working.52
Dr Jackson achieved a high success rate in treating fractured spines by his own
invented method of applying a plaster jacket. The patient was laid face down on a
stretcher, the stretcher then suspended between two chairs. To make the plaster lighter
but stronger, perforated tin (as used in bread-graters) was incorporated on either side of
the spine. In the three years 1930-33, of seventeen cases of fractured spine only one
patient died, eleven months later, and he had had fifteen other fractures, while the
remainder of the treated miners all subsequently walked and eleven of them found
suitable work.53
Complaints examined and reported on in a book containing copies of letters from
June 1892 to March 1905 include writer's cramp, hypochrondriosis, melancholia, wellmarked
phthisis ('it is improbable he will be fit for much further work'), spinal spastic
paralysis ('a curious condition mentally and I do not think you would be wise in
employing him'), and of course fractures. Miners, railwaymen, and other employees of
local firms and their families were among those examined.54
Like his predecessor Jackson worked on contract to Pilkingtons. In a manuscript
book of glass works and mining accidents covering from 1890 to 1894 and giving places
and types of injury, Dr Jackson is not mentioned by name.55 But miners and glass
workers were certainly being referred to his surgery at 69 Church Street and he also
attended cases in rooms at the Junction, Sutton. In 1898 Pilkingtons set up a surgery at
the Navigation Inn to deal with serious cases within the works and in 1905 appointed the
firm's own full-time doctor for some 4,500 employees, although a further 1,500 remained
under the care of part-time doctors, including Jackson.56 An 1893 letter to the firm,
notionally from Gaskell and Jackson, actually from Jackson, gives a useful picture of this
side of the practice.
We enclose our accounts for the year 1892 & shall be glad if you will enter into
correspondence over the necessity of increasing this amount as we find this work done in
connection with your workers is very great & quite out of proportion to the salary ... During
the year 1891 we attended to 1248 accidents & during 1892 to 2351. On an average each of
these cases has to attend the surgery 8 or 10 times, representing something like 2000
dressings per annum for which we were having in addition to these attendances to provide
bandages, dressings &c. to perform operations, give chloroform & certificates of
disablement. A number of more serious cases required frequent visits at their homes. A
considerable number of your accidents also occur during the night. As this salary has been
the same since the commencement of your works & as you will see the surgical work has
grown enormously we think we are fully justified in asking for an alteration in the rate of pay
& would suggest that it be on the scale recognised by the various colleries & the works, viz,
2s/6d per annum per employee.57
The request for a higher remuneration met with a favourable response and as 'Plate
Works Surgeons' the practice's annual fee was increased to £80.00. Fifteen years later
Jackson asked for £265 per annum for looking after the 1600 men at the Plate Works and
this was increased to £320 to cover the examination of potential recruits to the works.58
Dr Jackson was also formally employed by the working men of the locality, as
shown by certificates of referral from 'the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Permanent
Relief Society'. (A specimen certificate reads — 'Messers Gaskell & Jackson. Please
attend .... who is a Member of the above Society and sustained an Accident at .... Colliery
on .... 189..')59 In six months of 1900, the practice issued 197 certificates of disablement
(positive or negative) at the main surgery, 34 at the patient's home, and 134 during 80
thrice-weekly visits to the Sutton rooms at the Junction.60
The twentieth century brought novel occurrences to extend the social range of the
practice. Dr Jackson was a keen Territorial officer and in 1907, when at camp in
Beaumaris, he investigated the possibility of setting off a bomb by remote radio control,
using a Yapps coil, the same as the one on his X-ray apparatus. A vivid photograph of the
explosion exists, taken by his second wife.61
After fifty-seven years in general practice, in 1947 Dr Jackson retired to
Penmaenmawr. In 1939, on the jubilee of his work in St Helens, his fellow general
practitioners had presented him with a silver bowl. In 1925 he had moved from the home
of the practice for the last seventy years, 69 and 71 Church Street, to 5 Victoria Square. A
red-brick, gabled building in fine Neo-Victorian style, it had been built in 1903 to include
houses for two doctors.62 In the mid-1940s Dr Jackson was given occasional assistance
by a recently qualified doctor with a house job in a London hospital, Patrick Kyle,
whenever he visited his father, Dr James Kyle, who was also in practice in St Helens.
When Dr Jackson retired, Dr Kyle senior, who had been in partnership with Dr Morris
Jones for sixteen years, bought the practice for £3,000, to allow his son to join as an
Assistant. 'Kyle, Morris Jones and Kyle' then leased Jackson's house, with its surgery still
on the ground floor, while the original dining room on that floor became the waiting
room for the increased number of patients. The two Kyles and their wives lived for
several years above the surgery in the top two floors, but this was inconvenient once the
first grandchild arrived. When the Kyles left to live elsewhere, a caretaker was put in the
top flat to take night telephone calls and look after the building. The first floor was then
rented, eventually to a dentist, the son of Dr Morris Jones — thus maintaining the long
intertwining of practices, families and premises.
In conclusion
The first doctors had an apothecary's shop, and one had his own distillery. Later doctors
had their own dispensers and assistants working from their surgery (the last dispenser
retired in 1952). The later doctors, working in part for industrial concerns, practiced mass
medicine, but also were concerned about public health and the environment. One
ingenious doctor made his own precision instruments and experimented with a radiocontrolled
bomb. The practice, passed down the line in part through family ties and in
part through family and personal contacts — and therefore often considered by its
members a 'family practice' — has operated for two hundred years from the same
vicinity. As proof of a measure of continuity in the practice, for much of the period useful
medical notes were made in the same two books. The descendants of these doctors, even
when not in professional medicine, have tended to cling to St Helens — a notable aspect
of the local history. All the doctors owned property and enlarged their estate; one family
which deserted medicine for business has flourished mightily. As responsible members of
the community, the doctors founded book clubs and a professional society, played an
active role in churches, a temperance society, local government and a local military
group: one became a J.P. We can now see that, being human and of their time they had
defects and blindnesses, but this is not the place - nor do I have all the material — for a
balanced historical assessment of their role as social actors. Instead, I conclude with the
words of Dr Gaskell when in 1904 he presented Gaskell Park to the town/Parks are the
lungs of our crowded towns and they also offer counter attractions to the pernicious
habits which sap morality and foster vice, by enabling people to spend their leisure in a
way that recreates strength, conducive to diligent and conscientious work.'63 The
language may be outdated, the concepts questionable, but the good spirit is there.
TALL TALES FROM ACROSS THEW WIDE POND BESIDE YET ANOTHER LARGE POND.
Anonymous Former National Guardsman Claims Mount St. Helens Burnt Bigfoot Story Happened.
n the late 90's early 2000's, a science teacher named Thom Powell picked up on a story by an anonymous government employee who alerted the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO) about a 7.5 feet long/tall burn victim with "multiple burns on hands, feet, legs and body; some 2nd and 3rd degree burns". According to the story, on August 6, 1999, Battle Mountain, Nevada, exploded into several simultaneous range fires in what would be known as the Battle Mountain Complex Fire. A Bigfoot was hurt in the fire according to an anonymous government employee. The story was later dismissed but the acclaimed author and science teacher believe it really happened and that the whole story was an elaborate cover-up.
It has been years since the story broke and still no one has come forward to claim it actually happened-- until now. Running a Bigfoot blog, we get some strange emails every once in a while. This morning, we received an email from someone who claims to be a former National Guardsman, saying he was there and he saw the Bigfoots. This person gives a detail account of the experience that he and four other guardsmen had with the creature and all were told to keep quiet about it. We know how much some people like to pull our leg, so, as always, we'll let you be the judge:
I was reading some of the stories about Mt. Saint Helen on the message boards and wanted to share this one. I only ask that you withhold my name.
I was a National Guardsman at the Mount Saint Helen site and this is the first time I have ever spoken about what I saw firsthand. I lived in Spokane, Washington and was 24 at the time this all took place.
I have read some of the other stories and they only tell part of the story.
I was placed on a special cleanup crew farther up the mountain. A large tent was set up and it was be guarded by armed soldiers who were not part of the guard. There were numerous soldiers on the scene that were not members of the guard.
We were given a briefing by soldier who said that “after he spoke to us, we would forget about him and what he said at the end of the mission”. This was strange as we never dealt with anything before.
Myself and four other guardsmen were told to follow a group of soldiers and not to speak to each other and to remain very quiet overall. We were told to get into a jeep and wait. We sat in the jeep for maybe a half hour. Eventually another jeep arrived carrying a civilian and another member of the military.
The civilian was brought into the tent and he emerged a few minutes later followed by a large hairy creature. It looked like a large man covered in fur and the best way to describe it was like “Beast” from X-Men only brown.
The creature looked to have some burns and had a bandage on its arm. At first we were afraid but when it walked by we could see its eyes and it just looked very sad and somber. He climbed into the back of a pickup with the civilian and the two were speaking in a weird language I had never heard. It would cough at times.
We followed the truck to different areas. There were 5 total stops. Each time we stopped we were told to follow the civilian and the creature. Each time we followed them to rocky areas where there were caves. The creature would make a sound and then listen. At the first area he made a sound and we all just waited in silence. After a few minutes, the creature looked at the civilian and then at the ground. The civilian at one point touched its shoulder and called for a canteen to give the creature a drink.
The same thing happened at the next area but this time there was a response to the sound. After a few minutes two soldiers emerged from the cave carrying a badly burned creature just like the one with the civilian. The creature bent down next to it and looked it over for about five minutes. It then spoke softly with the civilian. It turned and walked back to the truck and we were told to follow as we were walking away we heard a shot and we knew it was one of the soldiers putting the creature out of its misery.
There was no response at the third or fourth site but at the fifth there was another return sound to the creature. This time it was different and soldiers carried out a creature with a badly burned left leg. We were then ordered to all help get a very large stretcher from the truck and to help place the creature on it and carry it back to the truck.
We then immediately returned to the base camp. The creature was carried into the tent while the other creature and the civilian spoke. We were ordered to stay in the jeep until we were to be debriefed. As the creature turned to walk into the tent it looked at us and made a waving gesture with its hand. We took it as a thank you for what we had done.
By the time we were ordered out of the jeep we were all in shock. We were called over to an area to be debriefed and it was just strange. I will never forget what was said because it was just not what was expected. I thought I would hear “You took an oath and now you need to live up to it for your country with a threat also implied. A different high ranking soldier just said “look, do you all really want an explanation? You saw what we were doing. These creatures live in these areas; they mean no harm and want to be left alone. Do you really want to do anything that may cause them trouble? They are like us in a lot of ways. If you need or want to talk about this just wait about 30 years, by that time there will likely be no reason to keep them a secret”.
We were then ordered back to the guard camp because “they were breaking it up so nobody saw too much and knew everything that happened”. We did not speak of it and after a few months I just took the attitude that these things live out there and honestly my life is no different because of it. I only bring it up now because people have been writing a lot about MT. Saint Helen and I believe that the whole story should be told.
I will also say this. I like to camp and hike and have done so many times throughout the Northwest. Every time I would look for signs of these creatures, tracks, listen for sounds etc. I never saw or heard anything other than what I did that day on Mt. Saint Helen.
I used to walk home from work along the ring road. My first inkling that all was not what it first appeared was when I absent-mindedly walked into a lamp post. Looking up at it, I then realized that it was not a lamp post at all. The clue was the absence of a lamp on top, but the presence of a wire grille such as you see on chimneys to keep the rooks out. The lamp post was clearly a ventilator.
Once, parking my car on the top storey of the car park which is behind what used to be the Savoy cinema, I noticed a piece of apparatus right at the top which carried the internationally-recognized symbol for a radiological hazard. It appeared that this was some sort of radioactivity monitor. Logically, if this was where the monitor was, the place where the readings would be monitored would not be far away.
This was all in the eighties. About that time, I was friendly with a bloke who was a special constable. He told me that he had gone down underneath that car park (the street sweepers used to leave their handcarts down there along an inclined ramp) and had seen a door of prodigious construction. He said it was secured by the largest padlock he had ever seen. He had no idea what was in there.
A few years ago, the telephone exchange which is just further along from the car park underwent some serious extension work. Also, the roundabout at the top of the ring road opposite the Royal Raven was dug up for what was described as sewer improvements. Then, the ring road was taken out of use so that vehicles no longer travel along it. Possibly, you may dismiss all these things as being unconnected. It stands to reason, however, that, in the event of the balloon going up, the great and good of the borough will need somewhere to bolt until things die down. This seems unlikely now, but I recall that, in the eighties, there was quite a sense of paranoia. Surely I am not the only one who has developed this theory about the ring road?
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